This is the fourth in a series of reviews. Previously: Live and Let Die. Next: Diamonds Are Forever

This review contains spoilers

I tried to read Moonraker as a kid, and it put me off Bond novels for life — at least, until Silverfin revived my interest in the series earlier this year. Enthused by the movie, I checked the book out of the library, only to be sorely disappointed. Where were the lasers? The shuttles? The scary man with big steel teeth? Why was so much space given to an interminable description of a bridge match? Or to details of what the characters ate?

With hindsight, I have to say: I wasn’t as smart a kid as I thought. And actually, this is perhaps the most immediately accessible of the three Bond novels I’ve read so far, even if no-one destroys a cable car during the second act.

Moonraker, like previous instalments of the series, is an intriguing mixture of period detail and oddly contemporary motifs. The central threat — a small but determined cell of terrorists working to gain maximum publicity for their basically ideological cause by wreaking devastation on London — is oddly prescient in some ways, though not in others; and its disguise as a kind of proto-”Star Wars” missile defence initiative speaks to another anxiety that has continued to fester over the next fifty years.

But these modern-sounding concerns are set against the backdrop of Fleming’s version of the post-War British Establishment. Who knows what resemblance, if any, it bears to reality, but it certainly played to this reader’s expectations. My guess is that Fleming intended it to be a flattering peek into the rarefied world of the justly privileged elite. Today, though, it leaves distinctly mixed impressions: at once repugnant and seductive.

Rich, powerful men gorge themselves on delicacies that were presumably beyond the proles’ wildest dreams in the austerity of 1950s Britain; and they gamble vast sums in petty games of one-upmanship. On the other hand, they are clearly held to higher standards of conduct than their equivalents today: the novel’s opening revolves around the assumption that being caught cheating at cards would be enough to disgrace a national hero. Fleming presents a convincing picture of aristocratic nobility and decency, one almost strong enough to make the reader accept the implicit social contract. Almost.

Into this milieu walks Bond, who is less of a cipher in this outing than in previous volumes. We get a glimpse of his day-to-day existence, and learn that most of his time is spent on civil service mundanities; and we get a broader perspective on Bond the man — a more sympathetic character, this time, than in either of the previous two books. (We also learn the answer to one of my longstanding questions: how much does Bond earn? GBP1500 a year, before tax, plus a thousand of private income and all necessary expenses while on assignment).

Bond also cuts a more impressive figure in Moonraker. He beats the villainous Hugo Drax more or less fair and square, by virtue of intuition, cunning and grit, although he still falls head-first into a couple of obvious pitfalls, including a near re-run of the car-chase in Casino Royale and a bit of misplaced hero-worship that blinds him to Drax’s real intentions. He doesn’t make much of a mark with the lady, either …

Much of the book consists of coincidence, accident and farce that occasionally becomes almost cartoonish, in sharp contrast to the serious tone and grave consequences of Live and Let Die. In fact, I found myself strongly reminded of Tintin in places: the cheating millionaire, the army of eccentrically-coiffed Teutons and most of all the scene in which Bond deals with the villainous henchman by delivering him a swift kick up the arse. That makes it somewhat startling when Moonraker turns grittily sadistic in its final chapters, with Bond winning the day more through endurance than by his wits.

Moonraker the book may have very little to do with Moonraker the film; but it’s a thrilling romp nonetheless. I wish I had realised that twenty years ago.